Category Archives: archery

Rio Olympic Games 2016 – Day One

7 August, 2016

The day belonged to Ku Bonchan, Lee Seungyun, and Kim Woojin. It didn’t belong to ‘Korea’, that archery monolith. It belonged to those three guys who looked like what they were; a team. Distinct personalities, distinct styles – but indisputably a team, and delivering the most sublime, confident high-level target shooting the world has ever seen. Literally on another level.

The USA were great, on point, delivering the goods, and just as close. They bowed to the Korean lads afterwards. That was nice. Australia punched up.

There was samba dancing. On the field. A lot of it. TONS of it.

A lot of today’s pics are mostly about athletes in that weird limbo period in between doing the deep magic. The waiting. Who knows, tomorrow’s pics might be too.

Cheers.

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Jean-Charles Valladont

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Zach Garrett, Brady Ellison

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Lee Seungyun

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Taylor Worth, Ryan Tyack

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Alec Potts

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Samba Lady

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Lee Seungyun

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CHN RM

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Ku, Kim

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KOR RM

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Deepika Kumari + samba girls

7 days to go… archery and Olympics news

29 July, 2016

We’re in the countdown zone. Teams are arriving, the Sambodromo is being rapidly polished up for the debut next Friday morning, and there’s a growing air of anticipation. On Monday this was just a training field, this weekend it’s starting to seem like an Olympic venue. We’ve now got a steady stream of broadcast media coming in; today, we had Aida Roman being interviewed by Mexican TV.

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Aida Roman does press

Some more pics from the last two days:

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TPE arrahs

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Areneo David of Malawi

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IND RW

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TPE RM

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Marcus D’Almeida

And look who turned up late this afternoon – not to train, but just to have a look around. There’s been three Korean camera crews hanging around the Sambodromo for two whole days. When the Great White Sharks finally turned up for a nose around it was like watching shipwrecked men suddenly find a barrel of water.

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KOR turn up, hit the social media

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Hail Woojin, King Of Media

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Choi Misun. “Win it? Yeah, probably.”

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“So I put one in there, right, but the next one went in there…”

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This pic of Park Chae Soon actually taken by Ku Bonchan. He snatched the camera off me.

Some external news: Ki Bo Bae sticks to the script in a video piece on MSN, and feel free to enjoy the youthful exuberance of the Korean men’s team.

Turns out Atanu Das collects stamps. Who knew? A rather charming story in a tidal wave of media hype coming from the notoriously tempestuous Indian media. The Indian team have been out here working damn hard all week. If they don’t bring something home, watch the furies being unleashed.

Marcus D’Almeida in a rather flowery news piece (in Portuguese).  The Brazilian team have been working really hard out here, and I’d love to see them go deep.  Rather pleased that my piece on Bernado Oliveira and the Brazilian squad made it onto the front page of Rio2016.com.

Patrick Huston has made another video about his journey to Rio:

I’ll do my best to keep blogging over next week, but it really depends on how busy I am. Stay tuned. Thank you!

Sambodromo

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looking north (away from the archery)

The Sambadrome Marquês de Sapucaí was built in 1984, as a parade ground for the samba schools in the annual Rio Carnival; there are now ‘Sambadromes’ in several other Brazilian cities. Nearly a kilometre long, it was made by converting an existing street and adding bleachers along its length.  One end is a large square, where the parades finish; this is now the ranking round and practice range. Immediately next to that is the finals field, where the magic will happen. This is walled off at two ends and much more enclosed than previous Olympic archery venues. A little theatre. I think it’s going to be noisy.

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what it looks like at Carnival time. Photo: Nat. Geographic

Unlike all the other Olympic venues in Rio, it’s resolutely urban, stuck in the middle of a working-class neighbourhood called Cidade Nova, currently crawling with police. Bounded to the north by an eight-lane highway, another long freeway runs right down one side, only about twenty yards from our press tent. All around are unclosed roads.

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Past the arch, to the south, lie three large favelas, the oldest being Morro da Mineira. It’s an oddity that in most places in the world, the rich live up the top of the hill, with housing getting grander the higher you go. In many (but not all) parts of Rio it’s exactly the opposite.

It’s the only Olympic venue where you can see Rio’s most famous icon, the statue of Christ The Redeemer built in the 1930s, merely by looking up from the range – which should give succour to the several Catholics with a shot at an archery medal.

It’s difficult to say it’s a pretty place. It’s designed to come alive with colour and people and music; a neutral space. It’s a vast, monumentally brutal bit of concrete surrounded by more crumbling concrete, and much of it is in dire need of a paint job. When you hear it was made by Brazil’s most famous architect, Oscar Niemeyer, at first I thought, well, everyone has a bad day at the office.

Niemeyer is famous for many great buildings in Brazil, and one of his last in the 1990s was one of his most lauded, the MAC Contemporary Art Gallery in Niterói, a short ferry ride across the bay from central Rio. I went there last week:

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I absolutely loved this landed-UFO-cum-Bond-villain-lair showing off on a short spit of land overlooking Sugarloaf Mountain, although it’s almost too outré for it’s own good.  No-one visiting seemed bothered about the rather confusing exhibition currently on display. They’d come to see IT, not what was in it.

Niemeyer, who died in 2012, was famous for his curves – rather like another late Olympic architect, Zaha Hadid, who designed the aquatics centre for London. His most famous quote on the subject goes like this:

I am not attracted to straight angles or to the straight line, hard and inflexible, created by man. I am attracted to free-flowing, sensual curves. The curves that I find in the mountains of my country, in the sinuousness of its rivers, in the waves of the ocean, and on the body of the beloved woman. Curves make up the entire Universe, the curved Universe of Einstein.

Which seems a bit at odds with the squared off, boxy concrete lines I’m currently spending all day, every day in. But once I started nosing around the Sambodromo, I finally started seeing a little of the architect’s vision; the detailing, the shaping and yep, the curves.

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I think it’ll be a memorable outing – and I hope for all the right reasons. Our thing, our little corner, has the potential to be something very special, if the weather holds out and the soft winter sunshine makes the concrete glow.

I’m glad it’s here, in this defiantly real part of town, and not in some gleaming new arena that’s going to be broken up in a few weeks. It’s a spot with a bit of soul. Let’s watch what happens together.

 

it begins

25 July, 2016

The Sambodromo is finally open for training, and the first athletes and teams arrived today: Brazil, India, Malaysia and a lone archer from Belarus; Anton Prilepov. Especially good to see the home nation out there, looking comfortable and relaxed in the late afternoon sun. (Sunset is at 1730 here).

No other Olympic venue has quite such a dramatic skyline, taking in the spectacular Oscar Niemeyer arch, the Morro De Mineira favela, and Christo Redentor looking down on us all.

(It won’t be that exposed wood behind the targets for ranking or finals, a backdrop is going in this week. There’s a few little details still to go).

More tomorrow. Stay tuned.

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Deepika Kumari (note to media organisations – this image is © The Infinite Curve 2016 and you are NOT free to use it or edit it in any way)

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Indian women’s team (note to media organisations – this image is © The Infinite Curve 2016 and you are NOT free to use it or edit it in any way)

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Ana Marcelle Dos Santos

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Sarah Nikitin, Maria Canetta

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Bernado Oliveira

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Marcus D’Almeida

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14 days to go… archery & Olympics news

23 July, 2016

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Museum of Tomorrow, Centro, Rio De Janeiro

I’ve been in Rio De Janeiro one whole week. It’s an astoundingly beautiful city. Towering mountains, beautiful beaches, really nice people who don’t laugh at your very limited Portuguese.

It feels indelibly real. It bursts with life. An enormous, rolling, sprawling place where people spend their whole lives, that can easily shrug off something even as big as this.  It’s fair to say you’re not really feeling Games-fever rolling around the city yet, two weeks out from the opening ceremony, but you sense things changing. The country is still in deep recession, the Olympics bid was won when the country was riding high with record oil prices. (More on the background to the Games here).

There’s been a list of well-documented problems, none of which seem to be that much of an issue on the ground anymore, and certainly aren’t worrying any of the permanent staff here – just as long as that tube extension gets fixed, things will be fine.  I’ve felt pretty safe wandering around – safer than parts of London – helped by an ever increasing armed police and military presence. Security is already tight and getting tighter. Touch a lot of wood – and presuming a lot of people here get a wriggle on in the next couple of weeks –  this is all going to go just fine.

Over these weeks of build-ups, the huge machine that is Press Operations gradually awakens. It still feels quiet, but soon it will be the athletes, and then the fans, and then who knows what will happen.

Some of us – like me – are attached to a specific venue where particular expertise is required, and some are free-floating as necessary. We will all likely spend some time working on other sports.  And after that, the Paralympics. I’m not sure I’ve ever spent more time in a city that’s not the one I live in.

Me and the ladies in charge of rowing and sailing news aren’t staying in the various Villages with athletes and other media; we are in staying in the Centro, the downtown of Rio, best imagined as a mix of ‘old town’ and financial district. Near the coast, but not the beach. Busy during the day, dead at night and at the weekends. This part of town is also where the Sambodromo is located.

We’ve been commuting to the Olympic Park, which gives a lesson in contrasts. One road there gives us a long run in to the mountains with Christ the Redeemer redeeming all below, hugging stretches of coastline, rugged, misty peaks, past the spectacular Lagoa where the rowing will happen, past the jockey club, past one of the handful of golf clubs (golf is very much a rich man’s sport in Brazil).

The other, slightly quicker “Linha Amarela” route is very different, taking us past the docks, up and over the northern stretches of the city, crumbling concrete and rumbling, dirty buses and trucks. It takes us past the immense sprawl of favelas called the Complexo da Maré; jerry built housing, miles and miles and endless terrible miles of it, until a toll road eases us into the Barra area, a long stretch that looks like Florida, lined with shopping malls and tidy apartments, and eventually the soft-lit expanse of the truly vast Olympic Park, dwarfing London, ready to go, dormant, run over by ant-like workmen now just trying to make the details look nice.

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All this contrasts again with the best known neighbourhoods of Rio, the tourist and beach ‘Zona Sul’ areas of Copacabana, Ipanema, and Leblon, which I still haven’t managed to properly explore. But even they rub up against giant favelas such as Rocinha – although not many “shanty towns” have a view like this.

This is a very, very beautiful place, with gigantic contrasts between rich and poor, and very different attitudes towards many things. I really like it. And I couldn’t think of a better place to hold a sporting competition. If the Cariocas get behind it, it could be one of the greatest outings ever.

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There’s less roundup news this week. Things have gone very quiet, suspect there will be a blaze of publicity kicking off shortly though. The Brazilian team are mucking in with the host nation’s publicity machine, naturally.

You’ve probably noticed that all Russian track-and-field athletes have been banned from Rio, shortly to be followed by all the weightlifters. We are still waiting to hear if there is a total ban on all Russian athletes, which would deeply affect the archery; don’t forget the Russian women’s team are ranked second in the world after guess-who.

Rio2016 have announced that there will be three different types of medal ceremony, ‘traditional’, ‘popular’, and ‘cool’. I wonder which one archery will be getting, considering it is obviously all three of those things?

Indian archer Laxmirani Mahdji has been bio’d in the Indian Press. Everyone – even TV stars – wants a selfie with the Korean women’s team. Khairal Anuar Mohamed is doing it for his late father.

Some excellent stats from WA right here. Read this.

There’s two Paralympics previews worth reading; David Drahoninsky here and from Matt Stutzman here.

TeamGB have been ratcheting up expectations ahead of a repeat of Super Saturday on the track.

Nearly a thousand Gamesmakers from London 2012 are back for another round.

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Sambodromo in full carnival mode. Photo: The Guardian

I’ve visited the Sambodromo, which opens for practice tomorrow. More about that in my next post. Cheers.

21 days to go…. archery & Olympics news

16 July, 2016

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Sunset from Main Press Centre, Barra Olympic Park, Rio De Janeiro

So I’ve made it to Rio. Been here less than 24 hours of this writing.  I haven’t seen much yet, and there’s a lot to take in – this place is enormous – but with a bit of polish and paint, it’s going to be incredible. 

So World Archery has selected the six nations to receive tripartite places for Rio; three men, three women.  The Tripartite Commission awards places in 16 sports to nations, often developing or very geographically small countries, who have only sent a small athlete delegation to the last couple of summer Games, so to enhance the Olympics’ universality and make sure smaller nations get a chance to compete on the world stage.

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I’m stoked to see that Areneo David, from the landlocked country of Malawi in southern Africa is on the list. David is the best archer developed by the extraordinary ‘Sally’ Park, who shot for Korea at the LA Olympics and has been been an archer, coach, and international judge ever since.

She was seized with missionary zeal a few years ago and decided it was her mission to bring Olympic sport to Malawi, one of the poorest countries in the world. With sponsorship from a Korean bank , she managed to overcome severe logistical and educational difficulties to develop a series of archers.

Some other countries are waiting for confirmation, but a couple have been confirmed in external press, including the awesomely named Karma from Bhutan, who took two medals at the South Asian Games back in February.  That’s her full name: Karma. They don’t go in for second names in Bhutan.

Due to the ranking and seeding system, tripartite archers often end up facing top level opposition. In London, the tripartite matches got some of the biggest cheers of all – the British love an underdog. I’m kinda hoping the Brazilian crowds do too.

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The world’s media are finally starting to crank up their Olympic previews. In the UK, there’s an expensive and dramatic advert for the upcoming BBC coverage.  TeamGB are getting the push from the home pressCNN have put together this interesting piece on how the Olympic Park will look.  

The venues are apparently all ready to go.  You can look inside quite a few of them with Google Street View. The parties are ready to go. To the relief of pretty much everyone, Usain Bolt, previously doubtful, has been confirmed for the Jamaican Olympic team.

There’s a general sense that things are going to work. The only black spot this week has been the ongoing row over Olympic golf, with now none of the four top golfers in the world taking part in the competition, mostly claiming it was due to the Zika virus. Unguarded comments by Rory McIlroy seem to have confirmed what a lot of people have suspected, that it might just not be that high up the priority list.

Most squads are still at their final training camps and are likely to arrive in Rio next week with their larger delegations – apart from India. India’s archers are at the forefront of the largest ever Indian delegation to any Games, and once again, Deepika Kumari is in the spotlight, although Laxmirani Madji seems to be getting some press too.

What else? Local news video piece about Jake Kaminski right here.

Interesting archery podium preview piece on some random sports blog here.

Patrick Huston has made a new video on the GBR training camp in Turkey. Stay safe out there:

A slightly overdue piece pointing out the prevalence of Korean coaches.  From earlier this year, a piece on lead judge for Rio, Graham Potts.

Bored of Olympic recurve already? Over on the dark side, Crystal Gauvin has done an account of the World Field trials on her blog. She also did an interesting interview with The Archery Blogger a week back which is worth a read. Best of all, she just won GOLD at the US Nationals. Awesome!

OK. More soon. Bye!

28 days to go…. archery & Olympics news

8 July, 2016

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One month to go, and the Korean publicity machine hits fifth gear; the KAA seem to have flung the doors wide open for the media at the Taerung training centre. There was even a special hour-long documentary called ‘Game Of Numbers’ on KBS1, the main broadcaster, on the Olympic team and how it gets picked.

I’ve managed to get hold of a copy, but it hasn’t got any English subtitles (yet). (EDIT: You can watch it here, no English subs though).

The film is kind of slow and meditative, and takes in extensive interviews with squad & coaches, past & present. I wish I understood more Korean. Still, someone gave us a hand with a small bit of it, an over-the-shoulder shot of Ki Bo Bae’s notebook.

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You want to know what’s written in Ki Bo Bae’s notebook, don’t you? I bet you do.

1. Prioritise shooting bows (Always prioritise shooting bows over other thoughts)
2. Believe in posture techniques (trust my senses)
3. Positivity (Always think “I’m good at this” and “I can do this”)
* Making a mistake contributes to my image, so a positive routine is a must (Always think about the focus point)
* Results depend on my efforts!
* When the wind blows, aim for no more or less than 9 points
As long as I follow my usual routine, everything will turn out as planned!
Everything will be okay if I do my routine
Picture the way I shoot whilst performing image training
(Never lose trust!)

(Thanks to Jessica Cho)

From Naver News, a video revealing that the Korean team are practicing with full Falco Eye targets and full competition infrastructure on a reproduction of the backdrop in the Sambadrome. Odder than that, there is some “Neuroscience leveraging” brainwave reading action that reminds me of the devices used in this ancient film. The film also appears to show that some squad members are using 3D printed grips on their bows.

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There’s a separate film from Naver news that shows even more headset action, a diagram of the expected winds in the Sambadromo, and some other stuff too.

From Yonhap News, a revealing interview with Kim Woojin, who is rapidly turning into the most interesting member of the squad:

“Four years ago, (missing the Olympic team) left a bitter taste in my mouth, and I went through a slump” said Kim, now 24. “At a domestic competition afterward, I finished 55th out of 60 archers. I really doubted whether I could make the national team again. I watched the guys on the Olympic team train so hard, and I was just feeling sorry for myself….. When I tried to analyze the reasons that I missed London, I learned that I was too arrogant and too obsessed with the results. I was also unable to handle pressure.”

From the same website and journalist, an interview with Choi Misun and Chang Hyejin:

“I do want to win the individual title, but more than anything, I want to leave it all out there and come home with no regrets,” she said. “If I can manage to win a medal, then I’d be very delighted and grateful.”

Both interviews use the phrase “leave it all out there”. I suspect I’m going to have to try and find out what the Korean for that actually is. 🙂

A Reuters piece also revealed that the squad (or possibly just Ki Bo Bae) had been sunburnt practicing up a mountain on Jeju Island – the “Hawaii of Korea”. Not just any mountain – Mount Halla (Hallasan), a shield volcano and the highest peak in the country. Crikey!

The Korean teams and the alternates were also practicing in a baseball stadium, with the crowd encouraged to make a lot of noise – although clearly not when it was full. The KAA have been doing this since at least Beijing, and it doubles up as a great pre-Olympic publicity stunt. More here and some short videos here and here  (thanks to eljetico)

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Japan have picked their three women, one man team for Rio:

Kaori Kawanaka
Saori Nagamine
Yuki Hayashi

Takaharu Furukawa

Kawanaka and Furukawa return from London 2012, where they took women’s team bronze and men’s individual silver, if you remember. Although I hope they brought their singing voices with them, as their furious-looking former prime minister suggested that athletes who did not sing the national anthem loudly were unworthy of representing Japan.

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Italy have announced their Olympic and Paralympic teams for Rio, the biggest news being the absence of veteran Michele Frangilli. The men’s team are probably unable to be counted out, and the women’s team could do some damage in Rio too. Exciting!

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A slightly oddly-timed and oddly-placed video news piece about Khatuna Lorig, who won’t be competing in Rio after the USA didn’t qualify a full women’s team. You wonder if they’d booked the camera and the truck early expecting to do a pre-Olympic slot, and just went ahead and did it anyway. Weird.

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Archers dread competing under lights” has the Indian Express claiming that the Indian team haven’t had enough practice under spotlights before Rio. Plus the spectator guide for the Sambadrome has been launched.

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TEAM GB NEWS: Patrick Huston, currently at the Beiter centre in Germany, has put up a new video, this time explaining reversals. Watch it right here!

Patrick and GBR coach Richard Priestman also shared this picture of the personalised number plates they’d bought themselves after Patrick qualified for Rio during the European Championships in May. Yowza!

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Patrick also appears on the cover of the current edition of Bow International, where inside you can read my personal account, plus pics, of what I got up to in Shanghai. Lots of insider information, and even some jokes. It’s available in better-stocked newsagents, or you can buy and read it digitally on a phone or tablet too (search for Bow International in your app store).

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Crispin Duenas filled in this hand-written who-I-am piece for the Canadian Olympic Association. Whee!

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Finally, over at World Archery, we’ve hit number one on the Greatest Of All Time list. Inevitably, it had to be Kim Soo-Nyung, the all-time medal leader in the modern era, and a lady who managed to get back into the Korean national team after not even touching a bow for six years.

There wasn’t quite enough space to share the full anecdote she mentioned about the last round in 1988, where she mentioned not being distracted by the photographers. She actually cited a well-known Korean folk tale about a calligrapher called Han Seok Bong, which I am going to quote here from this website:

Long ago in a small village far from here, a boy named Han Seok Bong lived with his mother. She sold rice cakes for a living, and their family was poor. Because of their poverty, they could not afford to send Seok Bong to school. He stayed home by himself all day.

Sometimes Seok Bong would amuse himself by writing his letters in the dirt in front of their home. One day, a gentleman happened to pass by and praised the boy’s talent at calligraphy. From that point on, Seok Bong worked hard on writing his letters.

Seok Bong’s mother saw her son’s diligence and skill. She determined to send him to the temple so he could improve his skills by studying with the masters. Seok Bong was happy for the chance to go and learn, but the thought of living away from his mother made him sad.

“The art of writing is more than just talent,” his mother told him. “Practice is essential. You must study and work hard for ten years, and don’t give a second thought about home.”

Three years passed by. Seok Bong worked hard and studied diligently. He determined he had learned all that he could, and decided to leave the temple and return home to his village.

When he reached the mountain near his village he began to run. We he saw the gate to his house he ran even faster. He burst though the gate, and with a loud voice he cried, “Mother!”

His mother was busy cutting rice cakes. She looked up at him and said, “Has it been ten years? Why have you come back so soon?”

“There is nothing left for me to learn at the temple,” he replied. From now on I will take care of you.”

“I don’t want to be taken care of,” his mother replied. “What I want most is for you to become an outstanding young man of character.”

“Let’s see how well you have learned,” she said. “We will have a contest. I will cut my rice cakes, and you write your letters. We will see if you are yet a master.”

They each assembled their materials. Seok Bong began to write, and his mother began to cut her rice cakes.

Then his mother blew out the lamp. The room was pitch black.

After a while, she lit the lantern again. The letters Seok Bong had written in the dark were crooked. Some were big, some were small. However, the rice cakes his mother had cut were each exactly the same size.

Seok Bong gathered his materials, stood up and bowed to his mother.

“I am sorry,” he said. And he returned straightway to the temple.

After seven more years of study, Seok Bong returned home. His mother greeted him with joy.

Han Seok Bong’s skill as a calligrapher became known far and wide, even as far away as the courts of China.

This moral story is usually told to young people about the value of humility, because we never learn all there is to know. But Kim Soo-Nyung was quoting it (if I have this right) from the point of view of the mother; getting on with what you have practiced with total discipline and ignoring other people, whatever they are up to.

Bye!

 

 

 

 

35 days to go… archery & Olympics news

1 July, 2016

All the news that’s fit to print!

The media are waking up to the fact that Rio is actually on, and the profile pieces are starting to trickle in. First up, a piece with the USA’s Zach Garrett.

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#teamflatcap

TeamGB has confirmed that, as expected, Great Britain will be sending Naomi Folkard and Patrick Huston to Rio, and they got kitted out for the formalwear round along with coach Richard Priestman and biomechanical witch-doctor Olly Logan. Patrick also appeared in a BBC Norn’ Ironed preview piece:

India have selected Atanu Das to be the sole men’s shooter in Rio, after the Indian men failed to gain three spots in Antalya. Over in Australia, Alice Ingley has been confirmed as the women’s team rep in Brazil, after some selection drama.

The Indian media seem to be maintaining their familiar standards of being aggressively rude and sexist towards Deepika Kumari, too, as reported in this slightly weird preview piece about Indian Olympians.

“All eyes were on [Kumari] as she spoke about her mental preparations when she suddenly snapped momentarily. “Don’t stare at me like that,” she told those around her. “I get very conscious.”

Also, USA Archery have named their team for the Paralympics after the final trials.

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Olympic history: curious but very interesting piece on the history of athlete’s villages, from Inside The Games. 

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Pic via http://www.joongdo.co.kr/

Gratuitous Ki Bo Bae news of the week: she even gets photographed in the airport coming back from Antalya. Ki Bo Bae also appears in this film (firing a gun) from the main Korean broadcaster KBS which gets broadcast next week on Thursday July 6, and appears to be a full-length documentary about archery. Watch the trailer for ‘Game Of Numbers’ here.

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NB: do you live in Korea? Can you tell me if this is gonna have English subs? (I know some KBS programmes do). Do you know how to record TV programmes with soft or hard-coded subtitles? Do you want to be my friend for ever and ever?…

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Korean TV is also currently filming a young-adult drama called ‘Boys Archery Club‘ starring someone famous from a K-Pop band, which starts in July apparently, and is watchable on the web. I’m guessing it’s probably more about boys and less about archery, but if I come across it I’ll fill you in on the link.

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RIO: looks like they’ve finally finished the velodrome. Whoo! And they’ve got fruits. Lots of them! In the unlikely event you’re reading this and still wondering whether to go to Rio and watch the archery or not, it should be noted that tickets are still available for all sessions, starting from a highly reasonable 50 reals (about £10 / $13). Tickets for the Paralympics are wildly cheaper, starting from just 10 reals. Let’s hope the famed last minute ticket buyers get stuck in.

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Over at WA, the Olympic cycle is over for some, and Natalia Valeeva, one of the handful of six-time Olympians, has announced her retirement, along with Berengere Schuh of France.

The Korean team is doing that practicing in a baseball stadium thing again.

The number 2 archer on the best Olympian list is the USA legend Darrell Pace. This one was a little bit tricky to do for various reasons, but turned out pretty well. Amazing guy. Just one more to go.

Finally, you should all watch this amazing  doc about coach ‘Sally’ Park and her mission to make Olympic archers out of Malawians. I was lucky enough to meet her and her charge David Areneo in Shanghai. Very emotional in places. Well worth your time:

Bye!

42 days to go: archery and Olympics news

24 June, 2016

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Pic: DutchTarget.com / World Archery

So Antalya happened. In blistering heat of 40°C / 104 F, the Korean team made, and won, every gold medal match.  No cracks in the team armour at all, although the individual bronze matches saw some action. There was a sterling performance from Brasil, making the men’s team finals and shooting well but overcome by a seriously impressive USA men’s team. Tan Ya Ting of Chinese Taipei turned heads by beating both Ki Bo Bae and Chang Hye Jin on her way to individual bronze.  Choi Misun continued her dominant run and has to be individual favourite in the Sambadrome in six weeks time.  The compound finals… weren’t that thrilling, really. Sorry. Well done to the Turkish compound talent finally, deservedly breaking into the medals though.

For a lot of squads, the tournament was almost a sideshow compared to the final Rio qualifier, and it’s hard to take conclusions for the summer that haven’t already been drawn.  Germany had a disastrous meet, failing to upgrade individual places to the full team spots their ranking easily suggested should be theirs. Today, they announced they will send Lisa Unruh and Florian Floto to Rio.

As Antalya was the last World Cup of the year – there are only three stages in Olympic years – the line-up for the World Cup final has been finalised. There’s plenty of new entrants as well as familiar faces: Brady Ellison will be back for a record seventh consecutive final.

Source: http://rio2016.olympics.com.au

RIO NEWS. It’s really not been the best week for Rio 2016, with athletes getting robbed and ticket sales still sluggish.  Some big name golfers have pulled out citing the Zika virus, although reading around there is a sneaking suspicion that it’s just not that high up the priority list. I personally think golf has no place in the Olympics, TV draw or not. It’s a long way from being the pinnacle of the sport, and that’s what it should be. Hopefully next month will be like London 2012 at the same stage, when the doom-and-gloom fades and the excitement starts building.

It’s looking like Russia’s track and field athletes won’t be in Brazil in August, but there’s even a possibility the entire Russian delegation might get canned. That would affect the archery profoundly; the Russian women’s team would be expected to make the last eight, and their absence would strengthen several other team challenges. Watch this space.

Gratuitous Ki Bo Bae news: she’s been named on some list as one of the ’50 star athletes’ of Rio. Whee.

For something a bit lighter on Rio but still very interesting, you could watch this video by photographer David Harvey.

 

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GBR have named their Paralympic archery squad for Rio, and given the way everyone seems to be shooting at the moment, I see medals coming home in September. There’s some awesome athletes and some awesome stories too.  In other TeamGB news: the hockey team manager’s odd past has caught up with him.

Patrick Huston has started a series of videos about training and shooting internationally; here’s the first one on how to make a ‘Formaster’ type device, featuring twice-Olympic medallist Richard Priestman. Whoo!

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Kumari joined pic

Doing the Kumari roll. THIS PICTURE COPYRIGHT THE INFINITE CURVE 2016 DON’T STEAL IT AND RUIN IT KTHXBAI

Indian archers are never far from their own country’s sports pages, which are noticeable for their flowery, melodramatic language.  They are also notable for a cavalier attitude towards copyright issues. This report on Antalya uses one of my photographs – I took it at the finals of the World Cup in Wroclaw last year. Apart from making the quality hideous and stripping off the watermark, they’ve also apparently assigned the copyright to someone else! FB? Facebook? Yeah, cheers guys…

Tokyo 2020 are very pleased with their new Olympic emblem. Watch their video about it here.

Over on WA, there’s a veh interesting piece from Ludivine about the growth of archery in France.  On the list of World’s Greatest Olympic Archers, we are down to number three, and serious greatest-of-all-time territory. The incredible Park Sung Hyun.  It felt like a privilege to write it. I’ll leave you with a translated quote I couldn’t fit in, from fellow team member and Korean legend Yun Mi Jin. The question was: Who do you admire most?

“Though we only have 1 year apart, I would pick Park Sung Hyun, the player with two consecutive wins at Athens Olympic Games. Now she is a mom of 3 children and a supervisor in Korea’s work team. I was happy to run for various national tournaments next to such a compatible companion with many things to learn from, and I truly enjoyed all the memories and good scoring she presented to me. Not only me, but many people are particularly fond of her. She is the only player in the world to exceed 1400 points in a single round, and her personality is as amazing as her skills.”

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Source: YouTube.com

Bye!

 

49 days to go: archery and Olympics news

17 June, 2016

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There’s been some amazing action in Antalya this week, the final major tournament before Rio.  The main World Cup draw itself didn’t spring too may surprises, but there was a great deal indeed at stake if you had skin in the game in in the final team and individual qualifying tournaments.

The team qualifiers saw many surprises including many strong teams (Germany, Canada, Mexico, Russia, Belarus and the USA women) failing to pick up spots, and a handful of teams finally grabbing what the ranking suggested they deserved.  The final final individual knockout this morning saw more tough breaks and some incredible performances, such as Naomi Folkard of Great Britain battling back from 4-0 down to take the match and a spot. Absolutely boss picture by dutchtarget.com above. The competition continues with the usual Compound Saturday tomorrow and strugglesti… sorry, Recurve Sunday the day after that, when Korea are in every gold medal match. It’s looking ominous. 

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In Rio, the Olympic medal design has been launched with some eco-tastic ribbons, and look pretty damn good, if fairly straightforward. I guess after the recent debacles in Japan people are sticking to the knitting, design wise.  The organisers have also finally come up with the most important thing of all: a slogan. The Games tagline is  ‘A New World‘. Does the job, right?

Looking to the future, the United Arab Emirates are rather confident of making a dent in the archery universe at Tokyo 2020. I suppose if they throw enough money at it, who knows what could happen?

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I previously reported that the Indian archery team would be staying outside the Olympic Village (as more than one team might be doing).  This plan has apparently now been nixed, apparently due to the threat of Zika virus.

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The doping ban on Canadian international Jay Lyon has been upheld and he is suspended for two years. He’s not very happy about it, and gave a detailed interview to the Winnipeg Sun.  He was already unlikely for Rio, but the Canadian teams failed to win any team berths in Antalya this week and will be sending just one man to Rio (Crispin, I presume).

Also, Oscar Ticas of El Salvador has been banned for a year, for an unspecified doping offence.

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Lancaster Archery has an interesting feature about Brady Ellison, with some choice quotes as usual:

“The benefits (of being an Olympic athlete) are mostly that of personal accomplishment – not financial or material things, although once I was recognized and got out of a speeding ticket.”

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This weeks greatest Olympian: the only one on the list not still with us: Hubert Van Innis, from an Olympic era when nations basically set up as many of whatever tournaments they fancied. Sounded like quite a guy. The great-great-grandfather of Sarah Prieels, too.

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The Archery Blogger has an interview with Bryony Pitman, who came within a match or two of an Olympic place in Antalya this morning.

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Finally, someone alerted me to this full length (2hr plus) feature about traditional & barebow archery technique called The Push. I haven’t seen all of it, but it seems to be a well produced and well-thought out piece.  You can watch The Push right here.

Bye!